LAURA: So Steve, I’m eager to know what these words are. Tell us what the worst words are that you’ve ever heard. You’re in Heaven with Jesus and he says something to you, and it’s the worst thing that you had ever heard. What?
STEVE: When I was in Heaven, I thought I was staying. I thought I was there forever and I’m liking it. And the worst words I’ve ever heard from that day to this were the words of Jesus with his arm over my shoulder, and he said, “You can’t stay.” When he said that, I woke up in intensive care isolation with a Navy nurse at the foot of my bed, charting, taking notes.
LAURA: So you went from the top of your game to being permanently disabled, and so you woke up in this shell, an incarcerated body, as you said. Explain that to us.
STEVE: I had 60 percent lung damage in both lungs. So when they discharged me I sounded like Darth Vader. I had a really hard time breathing. Today they would call that COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I just had a really hard time getting enough air in and my exchange wasn’t really good. And they thought I would gradually get better and that I would get to the place where I was an okay person, but I never did.
LAURA: But then Heaven broke in.
STEVE: Yes.
LAURA: And this is what you refer to as the bubble. Please explain that to us. What happened next?
STEVE: I was in a pancake restaurant in a meeting with a client and a big lumberjack kind of a guy comes in with his little boy, and they take a seat real close to the front of the restaurant. And about halfway through the meal, the big lumberjack of a guy reaches across the table and he slapped his son so hard that it knocked his son out of the booth. And the restaurant, of course, froze. And I couldn’t stop myself. I turned to my client and I said, “Excuse me.” And I went over to pick the little boy up. I firmly thought that the little boy would have blood running out of his left ear. I was glad he didn’t. I loaded the little boy into the booth and I slid in next to him, and I leaned forward and looked at the big lumberjack, and I said, “I need you to ask your son to forgive for what you just did.” And he’s looking at me incredulously. He says, “I’m not doing any of that.” And he said, “What gives you the right to talk to me that way?” And I said, “What gives you the right to smack your son around? I know this wasn’t the first time.” And he said, “Well that’s the way my dad raised me.” And when he said that, I asked, a light went off in my brain, and I said, “So what did it feel like when you were his age to get smacked around like that?” And he says, “What are you gonna do?” And I turned to the cash register lady, and I said, “Call 911. We need the ambulance, we need the police and we need somebody from social services for the boy.” And I turned back to the guy and I said, “Ask your son to forgive you for what you just did because of how it felt for you when you got beat up at his age.” And he started to tear. He got misty. Big, burly guy got misty and the bubble of the Kingdom of Heaven erupted around our table all the way, it reached all the way to the cash register lady who started crying. And the only thing you heard in the restaurant was the 911 lady who said, “911, what’s the nature of your emergency?” And I turned to her and I said, “Tell her that it was a mistake. Everything is going to be okay.” And I turned to the guy and I said, “Forgive, ask your son to forgive for what you just did. Break the cycle of violence in your household that’s been there for years.” And he did.
Man: I’m real sorry, son.
STEVE: Now here’s a guy who’s disabled, scrawny, in a suit talking to a lumberjack who’s been abusing his little boy and it broke the power of that spirit from generation to generation, and that little boy didn’t have to be raised like I was.
LAURA: Right. So then that was the fruit of it, of what happened in the middle of that bubble. But what did it feel like? Tell us what it felt like for you and were they aware of it, that they were inside of this experience?
STEVE: One of things about the bubbles of Heaven is they’re for everybody, because everybody experiences it. And it’s the thing that turned his heart. It’s the thing that made a guy who’s been aggressive and an abuser weep. That’s powerful. That’s the Kingdom. It feels like Heaven, but not Heaven to the full. It’s an echo of the previous place. And when I felt that, there was something that went off in me that said, pay attention, this is really big. And so for now, 41 years, that happens over and over, and over, and over, not just to me, but for people that I’ve trained to do this. And part of what I’m doing here, part of what I’m doing now is I want to train lots and lots of people to experience the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now because we should and we can.
LAURA: You know, we talk all the time about being in a bubble of protection. It’s a concept that we grasp. But to say that we are in a bubble from Heaven, that’s a phenomenal thing and it’s accessible by all of us. When we come back we’re going to talk more with Steven about this and we’re going to talk about how you can recognize a bubble of Heaven.
